Carmelized onions for the freezer. Will probably make a batch of onion soup, my way, soon. Unlike most folks, I really don’t like how salty & heavy traditional onion soup is. I prefer to make onion soup with chicken stock. DH likes the original, so I make it both ways.
If I use up all the carmelized onions I just made, well, I’ll make up another batch!
I did repackage the onions on the floor of the pantry yesterday, but I just took them out of the mesh sack they came in and put them in a pillow case. Less mess and easier to handle. But this doesn’t qualify as eliminating the excess, because there’s still onions on the floor of the pantry, and carrots and potatoes as well.
I need to freeze some more of the veggies, I have a little room now… not much, but I could put aside a quart or two.
Roasted a dozen carrots this morning. Neither of us were wild about them. First recipe I’ve made from the NH Farm Cookbook that wasn’t a success. DH said he preferred the two other recipes I use: a roasted veg recipe and the hash. So, I’ve got veggies set aside for a double batch of the roasted veg recipe.
Used about 1/2 the carrots in the “overflow,” but not all. Still, that’s definite progress!
I think tostadas or tacos tonight for dinner. The Mex. bulgar is good and we’ve been eating some combo of potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, etc. for most of the week. I am out of meat and I buy that bulk too, right now I have no room or inclination to deal with another x pounds of y food. Just no.
So, if I can find greens and I think I have a stable end of a romaine in a jar, staying healthy, then I can dish up Mex. bulgar, lettuce, cheese, salsa and ta-dah! dinner I do NOT have to cook or do a lot of prep for.
If it seems that I’m getting fatigue? Well, yeah, I am.
I will need to buy celery soon. The bulk farm didn’t have a 1/2 case of celery to sell me this year, I waited too late. I don’t know if I’m sorry or not. Dealing with 12 bunches of celery on top of all the rest would be probably just too much.
I went in the meat drawer to pull the pork roast I’d wanted to save for Thanksgiving and ran across a bulk 5 lb pack of chicken thighs. Hurrah! Chicken tomorrow.
Last night (Fri) we had bulgar and the roasted veg. Tonight I’ll probably get DH to grate cheese and we’ll have tostadas. Tomorrow? Chicken (something)!
The roasted carrots became carrot sauce on pasta, yesterday’s lunch. I thawed/browned them in a skillet before I mushed them up with a thick white sauce for the pasta. Probably will never be a fave here, as DH dislikes most cooked carrots, but it was acceptable and it got the container of roasted carrots out of the freezer.
Dinner was leftovers because I’d been working all day and had not even considered dinner. This is what happens when you marry a writer. Sometimes the writing just takes over life…
Tonight’s dinner is started: bean soup. The beans are soaking, the recipe is open on the table. I know that after returning from the storage and farm I will NOT want to think about dinner. Now I don’t have to, it’s started. All I have to do is follow the recipe, which isn’t involved.
Sometime this week, I will roast another batch of carrots I think and that should take care of the carrot overflow. The donation should take care of the onion overflow. Then all I have to worry about are the potatoes…
Progress, but not resolution, yet!
The pillow case, which held the onion overflow, is in the laundry. Hurrah! One down, two to go.
I guess I forgot to save it, or something. I donated two grocery plastic bags of onions to the local food pantry yesterday. I called first and made sure they could take loose produce, they could. So, it was my first stop! That’s why the pillow case of onions is no longer on my pantry floor.
On the other hand? The produce from the farm yesterday included a second plastic mesh bag of sweet potatoes, both now on the pantry floor, sigh.
There’s also leeks that need to be used up at the back of the fridge too.
The sweet potatoes were put into the basket I usually use for them. This displaced more potatoes. So, now the potato bag on the floor of the pantry has 2x as much in it, but the sweet potatoes aren’t on the floor any more.
Still on the floor: bin of carrots, large bag of potatoes.
The extra leeks are soaking in their 2nd rinse water. They’ll get sprayed one more time before I steam them.
The pantry feels downright spacious without the huge portion of potatoes and onions on the floor!
Of course, there’s more to do, the carrots and the overflow potatoes are still there, but I got the onions and sweet potatoes off the floor and about half the baking potatoes too.
Made a batch of potato-leek soup for dinner. Before I made dinner, I took about 1/2 the thicker sauce out of the pan and froze a quart of it. Then I added milk, Better than Bullion, flour and butter as needed.
The remaining bunch of leeks can now fit in the fridge… I had too many.
The soup was yummy. We had it for Thursday’s dinner and Friday’s lunch. The quart of potato-leek base is in the freezer.
I have stewed tomatoes/Italian herbs cooking down at the moment. DH wants pizza for dinner, so that’s the plan.
I have no idea wtf to make for dinner. I made home fries for breakfast: one carrot, 1/2 an onion and 10 small potatoes. Added cheese and a little milk/flour/butter to cream it up.
It was good! The end of it is in the fridge.
Maybe I’ll turn it into hash for dinner? I have a container of smoked salmon scraps in the freezer…
We had whatever for dinner last night. Neither of us was feeling great so we just grazed and ate whatever we found. I’d bought a tub of the cheese spread we like, so mostly it was cheese and crackers.
Tonight? We need a real dinner. We had coffee cake (1/2 off) from the market for breakfast.
I want beef stew but I do not have any stew beef. I do have a pork roast but no apples. Hmm. I’m wanting long cooked hearty fare. I’ll have to think about this some.
Also, I will be gone all afternoon likely, so I need something quick for dinner. Fortunately, I bought green chili tamales over the weekend, so we’ll likely have that. If I can con (persuade) DH to make corn bread, that should do dinner for tonight. Tomorrow I can work on a more involved dinner.
I’ve decided that I need to donate a few of the potatoes to the food pantry. I’m just not using them up fast enough and I do NOT want pounds of sprouting potatoes all at once…!
Yesterday I cooked a HUGE piece of pork. Today’s lunch was shredded pork with Zough sauce, sort of. No peppers in it. It was really good though and used up some of the sauces I’d frozen earlier this year.
There’s pork broth cooling in the fridge to be made into stock. There’s pork chunks in the fridge waiting to be turned into ____. I dealt with all the tomatillos I got Monday, thank Gohd, but not the basil. It and the now wilted parsley are on the counter, waiting to be chopped and frozen, my default these days when I just don’t have the time/inclination to do it “properly.” When I froze some of the tomatillos, I spread a “hat” of previously frozen cilantro on top, as I didn’t have fresh. Takes less space, and got rid of a container from the freezer – and I desperately need the room.
I’ve got about 2 weeks, maybe 3, before I"m supposed to go get the carrots, onions, and potatoes for winter, again. 100+ pounds of food. Right now, having just finished the tomatillos and the tomatoes not too long ago and the pork roast yesterday/today… I have NO enthusiasm for the project, although I do love eating through the winter without going to the market!